No, I have not drunk any strange Kool-Aid lately; I am both an optimistic and realistic. I am adaptable enough that when life hands me lemons-I WILL find a way to make lemonade. Recall the blog about Jemma “failure is not an option” and “gentlemen I believe this will be our finest hour”. Regarding “Commit and Providence will Move” and “I refuse to allow outside influences determine my level of success”.

The current economic crisis has given me some astounding, unbelievable gifts. Gifts like time and reflection and I don’t mean the kind of reflection Narcissus enjoyed. Let me explain.

As a business owner, when economic times are good, how much time to you spend wondering what your bank merchant card fees are? Tell the truth now, if you aren’t personally checking on the fees, do you know who is and if they really are? Do you even know how to calculate the fees or are you depending on that nice person that comes out from merchant services and tells you how they can save you money?

When your company is busy fulfilling orders, are you shopping health insurance policies? If you aren’t maybe it is your human resource department. Are you sure your human resource department cares about your bottom line?

Employee training. In fat economic times, if there is a problem with an order do you investigate that and correct it, or just refund the customer.

Customer relations. How well does your sales staff know their customers? For me if Joe Average Googles “cheap HDMI cables” there is going to be roughly 10 million other web sites that have discount HDMI cables for sale-why are they going to choose me? Cool name, cheap price, reputation for good customer service? Or maybe my sales guy knows they prefer a non fat latte or the name of their child’s private school.

Vendor relations. When you are so saturated with order fulfillment that every sale is an emergency, are you 100% confident your vendors are giving you the best pricing?

What are the core values of your company? Because your values and those of your employees are the rocket fuel that will propel you to the top of the game or conversely just get you to 7-11 around the corner. Food for thought.

Now here is the Pollyanna coming out in me:

The United States of America is founded in the idea that “we can do it”. It oozes from us everywhere. The Pilgrims vomited over the side of a boat for 3 months to get here (a place unknown-at one time thought off the edge of the earth), in WWII Rosie the riveter galvanized women to help in the work force, Martin Luther King had a dream, Mr. Gorbachav tore down his wall, First Responders ran toward catastrophe on September 11 2001. One of the greatest catastrophes in our nation’s history and people ran toward it not away from it. The victims of 9/11 may have been afraid and running away, but the rest of us ran towards New York. Firemen, Policemen, Doctors, Search Dogs, even me-I ran towards it. Never in my life did I have an interest in visiting New York until September 11th. At the moment I was standing in line to give blood at the local blood center and watched the second tower collapse I knew I was going to New York. I refuse to allow anything to control my fears-including terrorists. I got galvanized, had a drink or several on the plane and I went there and saw the smoking rubble and cried. And I bought Tee shirts and ate at restaurants and had a horse ride in Central Park to prove to anyone who would listen “I am not afraid”. I personally felt I could help New York recover-many of us did-and New York did recover.

The point is, we Americans individually and collectively are strong, ingenious, driven and committed to a better way of life for ourselves and our children. We are a force to be reconded with. This economy will recover and in fact flourish. So for me, I am going to prepare for the Tsunami when our economy breaks loose. It’s coming so be prepared.